Project AIF1
by Miss Black Dragon
Summary: Team Rocket has been working on an artificial intelligence project, Project AIF1. This new project is extremely smart and extremely dangerous. What happens when Giovanni sends it out for a test run - against Ash and co...?
1. Dinner Danger

Project AIF1  
Chapter 1: Dinner Danger   
  
"Sir - Project AIF1 is finished."  
  
A rare smile replaced the man's usual smirk. "Good. Let's send it for a test run."  
The woman in front of him gulped. "Yes sir. Where shall I send it?"  
  
His fingers rested over a keyboard, one hand hovered over the mouse and moved it. He browsed the pages of last year's Pokémon League Top 16 lazily, then he stopped on page 5.  
  
"Send it after Ash Ketchum and his friends. They've foiled Jessie and James' plans a few too many times."  
  
The woman blinked, not knowing of Jessie and James' several times failed capture attempts. Herself, she had stolen several Pokémon over the years. "Yes sir. At once." With that, she turned to leave.  
  
"Natalia?"  
The owner of that name stopped and 180'd.  
"Stop calling me sir."  
"Yes sir. Ooops, I mean -"  
The man laughed. "Go."  
  
Natalia left obediently, still puzzled over her boss' strange behavior. Then again, she thought, this is Giovanni we're talking about.  
  
* * *  
  
"Arrgh!" yawned Ash Ketchum, stetching out over a rock, and almost falling on top of Misty, who was leaning on the other side of it. Misty raised an eyebrow with an exasperated look, and shoved the boy back the other way, earning a "Pika pi." from Ash's Pikachu.  
Brock took one look at the group up from his cooking and sweatdropped. "C'mon you guys, do you have to start fighting now?"  
"Yes." they said together. Brock's sweatdrop grew larger.  
"We've almost had a perfect day today, for once Gary didn't tease you about your Pokémon-"  
  
"That's true," Ash agreed, smiling. They'd run into Gary that afternoon, and he _didn't_ gloat when Ash proudly but cautiously displayed his badges. Quite the opposite, he'd congradulated Ash on his success and had actually confessed to not getting his Fog Badge yet.  
Brock sighed, he could tell he was going to be interrupted with each new point. "Look, can you please not fight?"  
The pair smiled sweetly, each holding their respective Pokémon over the other's head. "We're not fighting."  
A collective sigh arose from Brock, Pikachu, and Togepi's mouths. Suddenly, Pikachu pricked up an ear.  
  
"Pika pi."  
"What is it, Pikachu? You hear somethin'?" Ash asked anxiously. Pikachu had been getting better and better at predicting danger lately.  
"Toge, priiii!"  
"Is it Team Rocket?"  
Pikachu sniffed the air carefully. "Pika?" it questioned, its nose wrinkled.  
"Whaja smell?"  
Pikachu ran to Ash's dropped backpack, unzipped it and started rummaging through the contents. Not finding anything worthy enough, it instead darted to Brock's more-than-adequately prepared portable picnic table and removed a fork.  
"Metal?"  
Pikachu nodded vigorously.  
"Weird." Brock commented, with a quizzical look on his face. "It's probably nothing."  
Ash glanced at Pikachu, who was still looking fairly worried. "Well, we'd better check just in case." He casually selected a Poké Ball and threw it into the trees. "Noctowl! Search for danger, OKay?"  
Noctowl hooted gently, and obediently flew into the bushes.  
  
_**FLASH  
  
**_ "NOOOOC!"  
"NOCTOWL!" Ash instinctively abandoned his food and did a Roadrunner.  
"Pika pi!" Pikachu did likewise.  
"Ash, wait up!" Naturally, Misty grabbed her bag and ran after them.  
Brock looked up and blinked. "What do you know. They left without me again. Oh well, if I go too, my dinner will get cold." He shrugged and carried on eating, then remembered Togepi and shifted a few seats over to feed it.  
  
"Noctowl.." With tears in his eyes, Ash ran to the center of the clearing and picked up Noctowl's still body. Pikachu felt the side of its wing for a pulse.  
"Pika, pika pikachu."  
Misty breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank Suicune."  
Ash looked up. In front of him was an eerie young woman, with a cloud of red hair and unfocused blue eyes.  
"Did you do this to my Noctowl?" he demanded, with angry eyes and wet cheeks. The girl stayed silent.  
"_Answer his question!_" Misty yelled at her, for once actually sticking up for Ash. Slowly, she nodded.  
Ash stood up. "Well, you're going to pay for what you did!" he shouted angrily. "Pikachu!"  
"Pi, pikachu!" Pikachu replied, sliding in front of its trainer smoothly.  
For the first time, the girl spoke. Hers was a cold voice, totally emotionless. "Machamp." Without a motion, one of the Poké Balls on her belt rose up and opened. Ash and Misty's eyes widened.  
"PIKA!"  
Effortlessly, the Machamp raised an arm and knocked Pikachu over, fainting it. All this with a fairly bored expression, a complete contrast to the shocked looks on the other trainers' faces. The shock was slowly replaced by a look of rage on Ash's face. The eleven-year-old was starting to see red. He reached for a Poké Ball -  
"Ash!"  
He turned with an annoyed expression. Misty looked back at him with a red face.  
"You can't do this alone, especially when you're all mad like this. I'll help you."  
Ash reluctantly nodded. Still, the strange trainer watched them with her emotionless, pale face.  
  
A shadow moved over the pair. Misty yelped as Ash crumpled to the ground, Machamp towering over her. At one glance from the mysterious trainer, the Machamp 180'd and willingly went back into its ball. Misty glared at the girl angrily, tears starting to form in her eyes and looking a lot like Ash did a few minutes ago.  
"_Who are you?_" she screamed. "**_Who are you?_** _** ANSWER ME!**_"  
The girl paused. Misty continued to glare holes through her. "_**What is your name.**_"  
She thought about it a bit.  
"Project AIF1."  
_**  
**_  



	2. Light Screen

Project AIF1  
Chapter 2: Light Screen  
  
Brock blinked at Misty's piercing yell. "Mmm?" he murmured through a mouthful of chicken.  
"Toge?" Togepi blinked along with him, then hopped down from the bench and waddled in the direction of Misty's voice.  
"Hey, Trogepi, come back here!" Brock swallowed, then ran after the baby Pokémon.  
  
Misty stared at 'Project AIF1' in shock, for the first time getting a good look at her. The girl was dressed in an ebony catsuit, and Misty could just make out a small red 'R' on the breast pocket.  
"Oh I get it," she snarled, "You're a member of Team Rocket. Well guess what, you can't have Pikachu!" She slid in front of the unconscious bodies, ready to protect them with her life.  
AIF1 thought about it for a bit. "Team Rocket were my creators," she admitted. "But I was not sent after 'Pikachu'. Only the boy - and his friends." She gestured with a robotic hand and focused her emotionless face on Misty.  
Misty was again shocked. She reworded her question. "Forget about _who_ are you, _what_ are you?"  
AIF1 processed the words in her artifical mind. "Access forbidden to outsiders. Oh yes, I forgot."  
Blinkage ensued.  
AIF1 closed her eyes. "Raichu."  
Misty screamed as another ball floated up and opened, revealing Raichu. She knew all of her other Pokémon would be useless against an Electric type, so she did the only thing she could.  
"_**TOGEPI!!!!!!!!!**_"  
"Toge!" Much to her relief, Togepi ran into the clearing, stood in front of Misty and instinctively started doing what Togepis do best: Metronome.  
"Toge, toge, toge, toge, toge, toge.." it chanted, waving its paws side to side.  
"Raiiiii..." The Raichu's cheeks heated up, sending sparks into the air.  
"Toge!"  
"CHU!!!"  
A genetically-enhanced Thunder Bolt powered against Togepi's Light Screen. Misty's fearful eyes could be seen from the corners of Togepi's own eyes as it strained to maintain the shield. Misty, seeing Togepi's galactic struggle, grabbed hold of Ash's collar, briefly considered putting Pikachu into a Poké Ball, dismissed the idea in favour of cradling it in her other arm, and shouted at her Pokémon.  
"Togepi! Keep it up just a little bit longer! On the count of three, _run_ , OKay?" The baby Pokémon nodded. "One.. Two.." Misty made sure she had a firm grip of both trainer and Pokémon and got ready to run. "THREE!"  
  
"Hey - Misty - what happened? AAHHH!"  
Both Misty and Togepi had done Roadrunnners, leaving Brock to take the full brunt of the attack. The bolt passed through his body, crumpling him to the ground, and thus he fell unconscious. Raichu stood rooted to the spot, blinking. Instead of hitting the girl, the boy, and the two Pokémon, its attack had hit a weird teenager who came out of nowhere.  
AIF1 shrugged and recalled the electric mouse. The boy was probably a friend of Ash Ketchum's anyway. She walked up to the boy and kicked it, feeling a slight pulse through her genetically sense heightened foot. Good, the brat was still alive. She had recieved no orders to kill them, just give them a scare and maybe hurt them a bit. It was time to report to the Boss.  
  
  



	3. Aftershock Aftermath

Project AIF1  
Chapter 3: Aftershock Aftermath  
  
Misty looked around the tree cautiously. 'Project AIF1' was gone. She sighed in relief and came back into the now scorched clearing.  
"Toge."  
Misty looked down at her Pokémon. It had been searching through Misty's backpack, but unfortunately it didn't see anything that had a resemblance to a phone. Misty sighed again, and pulled Ash's backpack off his back. She dug through it, looking for the Poké Gear Ash'd found on the road a few weeks ago. She pulled it out, switched it on to Phone, glanced briefly at the saved list of numbers, registered with annoyance that Ash had neglected to save the Johto emergency number, and tapped it in herself.  
"Ambulance please..."  
  
"Will he be OKay?" Misty asked in a higher voice than usual. She'd dropped Pikachu off at the Pokémon Center and managed to convince the Nurse Joy there that no, she wasn't its trainer, no, its real trainer hadn't let it get into that condition, she'd been just as shocked as he was, and no, she didn't steal it after a few minutes of explaining, so she'd left it in the ER and taken a taxi to the human hospital. She was now at Ash's bedside - she'd found Brock but ignored him as soon as both boys were in safely.  
The nurse raised an eyebrow. "Yes, as soon as he's had the treatment. You his girlfriend?"  
"No way! Just a really close friend." Misty denied, blushing.  
"OKay, OKay. What the heck happened to him?"  
That was the question Misty had been dreading. She took a deep breath and said, "Knocked out by some crazy genetically enhanced Machamp."  
"Yeah, sure." Fortunately for Misty, all the nurse remembered was 'knocked out by Machamp'. "He just needs a bit of a rest and maybe some painkillers. Don't try to wake him up, just let him be for now. What happened to your other friend over there?" the nurse asked, gesturing over at Brock.  
"Got in the way of a shattered Light Screen and a super powerful Thunder Bolt." Misty answered, wincing.  
"Thunder Bolt burns and Light Screen fragment cuts.. He'll be out a bit longer than - oh yes, I never got their details. Fill these out for me, will ya hon?" She handed Misty a few forms and left the room.  
  
Misty glanced at the forms. *_I'll do Ash's first.._* She found a pen and scrawled in, _Ash Ketchum_. Home address, Pallet Town, Kanto. Occupation, Pokémon trainer. Sex, male, age, eleven... She stopped when she got down to the health section. *_I'll try his Poké Dex._* Ash's neatly folded clothes along with his backpack and Poké Dex were on top of a chair. The redhead picked up the Poké Dex and opened it.  
"**Password please.**"  
"Whooops..." The password was actually her own name, as Ash had always liked her from the time she pulled him out of the river. *_There goes that idea_ .*  
Misty sighed. The only option left was to phone Ash's mother, convieniently saved on Ash's Poké Gear, unlike the Johto emergency number.  
  
"Ring-ling-ling, ring-ling-ling, phone call, phone call! Ring-ling-ling, ring-ling-ling-"  
"Hello, this is the Ketchum residence..."  
"Um, hi Mrs. Ketchum."  
"Oh, hello Misty! Just call me Delia. Where's Ash?"  
A groan came over the line. "That's the problem."  
"What? What happened to my little boy?"  
"Um.. There was... an accident."  
  
A few minutes later, Delia Ketchum was almost hanging up the phone in disbelief. "So you're saying that there was some Team Rocket android thing that sent out a Machamp, which punched Ash, thus knocking him out?"  
Misty smiled painfully, grateful the Poké Gear had no camera. "Yeah."  
"And you need his health details, right?"  
"Yes. Even though he's only out cold..." Misty muttered. Fortunately, Delia didn't hear her.  
"OKay, just a moment..." Delia set the phone down on the table and went to find the forms.  
"Please hurry..." Misty whispered, taking the Poké Gear away from her mouth.  
  



End file.
